Hollinger gives Spurs a 35.4 percent chance to win title

With roughly three quarters of the regular season left to be played, it would seemingly be impossible to draw any significant conclusions at such an early juncture.

Not so, according to ESPN stats guru John Hollinger. As with virtually everything else to do with pro basketball, he’s concocted a formula to calculate playoff odds, including the probability of reaching and winning the Finals.

Almost as interesting is the best-case projection, out of 5,000 computer-simulated seasons, that has the Spurs finishing at 77-5, which means they’d have to win 59 of their last 60 games. The average record is 63-19, two games better than Oklahoma City and five ahead of New York. The Thunder has a 23.6 percent chance of winning the title, while defending champion Miami is at just 3.9 percent.

Still a long way to go, of course, especially for a team counting on major contributions from two players closer to 40 than 30. Nor do the Spurs have such a good history with strong odds. NBA teams will lose best-of-seven playoff series just six percent of the time after taking a 2-0 lead, and they’ve managed to do that twice in the past decade.

But for right now, the Spurs have pole position. The odds are updated nightly, so we’ll be sure to keep a close eye as the season unfolds.